It is that time of the season again, the height of controversy has arisen once more as the season arrives at the small middle eastern nation of Bahrain - a country which has become infamous for unrest and government oppression. A conflict that forced the cancellation of the race in 2011, and has never quite managed to escape the constant political stigma plagues the event and every year since that cancelled race. Once more a series of MPs have claimed that the race should not be going ahead again, but conveniently too late to make an actual difference, because in the end all they are doing it chipping in to pretend that they have some form of moral high ground. There is no real intention of actually making any moves to prevent the series heading to the country and the race being held. Things in the country are calmer than they were in 2011, and arguably calmer than issues some teams faced in 2012 - but they are far from serene. Continual claims of potential protesters being pre-emptively arrested, on the vague off-chance that they may say something or do anything marginally out of place. Which doesn't come across as being particularly friendly to me.
But here at blog HQ we... well I... intend to steer away from the political unease and complaints - being merely aware that it exists and it will be a major media talking point this weekend. Instead there have been other goings on the the past week between races, firstly the bubbling conspiracy theories against Red Bull. Indeed the issues Webber has faced in China may be anomalous and occurred just after an internal battle in Malaysia, but sabotaging a car is bad for the constructors points and the team already declared that as the massive priority. But there is better news... Heikki is probably coming back. Catherham have brought Kovalainen in for FP1 this weekend and that might be the start of a race seat instead of Van Der Garde - a move probably instigated by the fact that Bianchi in the Marussia is pummelling the team. Therefore in order to beat them, Caterham need a bit of extra pace and experience. Oddly Marussia have gone the other way and are bringing Rodolfo Gonzalez for the same session, who scored a massive 6 points in GP2 last season, while Van Der Garde scored 160 in the same season...It stands to reason that Mr Gonzalez has a lot of money behind him, just like Chilton has.
The Track
The Sakhir circuit is another of those Tilke creations, just like Sepang and Shanghai were before it this season but unlike those venues this one is much more angular in nature, an almost aggressively shaped and designed circuit. Where China was for the most part irritating in its layout and peppered with completely pointless corners which served no real purpose other then to try and convey some unnecessary shape. Bahrain is different, the majority of the corners do have a purpose - with the exception of the complex around turns 9 and 10, which are a little daft. The main problem is that the track is frankly dull, a lot the the lap is mostly boring - a repetitive sequence of longish straights into lots of similar hairpins. This track looks like something out of my painting repertoire which is simply an exercise in geometry rather than art.
At the start of the lap there is an encouraging corner, a billion times more exciting that the diabolical excuse of a turn we were forced to deal with last week - which opens doors for overtaking under normal circumstances... makes you wonder why the powers that be placed one of those DRS zones on the main straight. Following this the track manages to repeat itself - as another straight leads to a virtually identical corner which feeds into the middle sector which (barring turn 9-10) is once again the best part of the lap. Tilke does seem to like the middle sector. Which is where the second DRS zone is hiding, and for once this is actually a good idea, placed somewhere useful, instead the penultimate straight where it was threatened pre-season.
Sector three is mainly just the final straight and another generic hairpin corner to end the lap, this one is a little wider and opens out slightly on the exit but is not too entertaining. The problem with this track is sand, which is something the Bahraini desert is not short of - and then for some reason the run-off areas are made out of some artificial sand coloured grit glued to the floor. Because the track is barely used during the year, probably due to the local tensions, all this sand and grid gets everywhere and come race day is brushed offline. Leaving a single racing line which is usable and everything else is covered in the discarded particulates.
Now it is time to release the video, this week there was a minor technical issue, at where I managed to absent mindedly delete from this machine, and the plot thickened when it turns out the source mod is no longer present on the host servers because they upgraded to the 2012 and 2013 versions for which the templates don't fit. But I could not allow Myria's end to come about so soon, especially not by my own hand, so I scoured the internet for something to bring her back, and come hell I was going to succeed. And I did... but first I took an alternative vehicle to Bahrain, for Myria's safety, and this one can go over 88mph and doesn't need roads...
At this point in the season, no-one can truly tell, there is a clear subset of cars operating at the front of the field, but their order seems to change not only per weekend, but per session in a single weekend. This time the temperatures in the middle of the desert should be higher and therefore will re-shuffle the order once again, in 2012 that made Lotus very powerful and they scored a double podium behind Vettel. Now there is a stronger Mercedes team and a very quick Ferrari pairing at the front of the field as well making competition up at the front that bit more competitive where the obvious losers will be the McLaren team still struggling to update the car and make up for lost ground. This will be the final race before the boatload of updates and new parts hit the cars at the Spanish GP, when they return to the familiar turf of Europe.
If the front of the grid is a confusing and unpredictable group of cars, then the mid-field is even more so, especially considering that Torro Rosso have joined the proceedings with Ricciardo leading the entire mid-field in China. This group has it's losers too and that falls to the Williams team who have fallen a long way from where they were this time last season, considering the team won the next race in Spain. Here they are at the bottom of the mid-field and are not too safe from the power of Bianchi in the Marussia who while being further afield in China has often been inside a second of the next team.
Down at the back things are a lot less populated than they used to be when HRT were around, and Marussia are clearly the fastest team in this block, which is why Caterham have brought Heikki back at least in a testing role at this stage in FP1. But right now no-one can contain the pace of Bianchi although Pic remained close throughout the Chinese GP, so change might be afoot coming into this weekend.
The Bahrain GP, like China is not one that pop's up as a season favourite, but being so early in the season where no-one has fully adjusted to their cars, and who they are racing against, so there things may be unpredictable. Everyone likes some unpredictability, even though Pirelli have decided not to bring the rapidly disintegrating, softer compound - leaving instead the medium and harder on the trailer to be flown out to the middle east. I think there is something more to this weekend than a dull procession in the middle of the desert, just like China had a whole different dimension to it and 20 laps of chaos, here's hoping we can turn things up a notch in the desert heat. So until Saturday this is farewell from me here at Blog HQ.
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